Need help setting up a windows server

[TimboSlice58]

Hello LTT Forums! I'm hoping someone here can help steer me in the right direction or maybe there is a guide that I have been unable to find. I do some computer work for a tutor and preschool that has several students. Right now they have a setup of 5 computers with seperate logins for each that the students are using and it's causing a problem of some students accidently deleting other students work. They want to go to a system where each student has their own login to avoid this but unfortunately I haven't done much sever work or anything like this. Any help to steer me in the right direction would be so appreciated. 

[Firewrath9]

make them put their stuff on flash drives.

[Electronics Wizardy]

How much do you want to spend?

 

Id get a basic server with something like a xeon e3, look at something like a xeon e3. 

 

Then setup active directory, make everone use active directory for logins.

 

Setup redirectored home dirs so the files are the same on all systems. 

 

If you don't much about what I said above, you should probably hire someone that knows how to setup this up.

[Fleetscut]

Since all you need is a domain controller to authenticate 5 other machines you do not need anything complex, an old computer could work. You can use an older version of windows server like 2012 to save on licensing costs.

 

Eli the computer guy has some easy to understand videos of how to set up a windows server with active directory, join machines to the domain, and create users. You shouldnt need more than this.

[TimboSlice58]

14 hours ago, Firewrath9 said:

make them put their stuff on flash drives.

That solution doesn't work too well with all the documents that they have to  have and with how many kids there are. Most of the kids are younger too so not too good at not losing something

[TimboSlice58]

13 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much do you want to spend?

 

Id get a basic server with something like a xeon e3, look at something like a xeon e3. 

 

Then setup active directory, make everone use active directory for logins.

 

Setup redirectored home dirs so the files are the same on all systems. 

 

If you don't much about what I said above, you should probably hire someone that knows how to setup this up.

I don't really know too much about the server side of windows. I've been a system builder for years but never have really done the software side. they dont have the money to hire a tech. I do all the work for them at cost of parts be cause of that.

 

[TimboSlice58]

11 hours ago, Fleetscut said:

Since all you need is a domain controller to authenticate 5 other machines you do not need anything complex, an old computer could work. You can use an older version of windows server like 2012 to save on licensing costs.

 

Eli the computer guy has some easy to understand videos of how to set up a windows server with active directory, join machines to the domain, and create users. You shouldnt need more than this.

I've never heard of his channel. Thanks for the tips  i'm hoping I can do this fairly smoothly   I'm considering using my old gaming rig I have and upgrading the storage to a raid setup. Do you think a 3570k and 16 gigs of ram would be fast enough for this build?

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

31 minutes ago, TimboSlice58 said:

I don't really know too much about the server side of windows. I've been a system builder for years but never have really done the software side. they dont have the money to hire a tech. I do all the work for them at cost of parts be cause of that.

 

How much of a budget are you thinking here? You can reuse a old system if you want, but id stay away from that if you care about uptime. Performance wise, almost anything is fine, you basically need gigabit networking, but can get away with almost no cpu power and like 4gb of ram.

 

For raid on windows, you really want a hardware raid card.

 

If your getting a system id get a used server like a r710 as you get much better support in software for that hardware.

 

You also need windows server, so that gonna be about 600 usd. Might be able to get it cheaper if used for education, call up microsoft.

 

But really if you don't know what your doing don't setup this. Your much better spending a thousand for a guy to set it up than trying it your self and running into issues later on.

 

 

[Fleetscut]

9 hours ago, TimboSlice58 said:

I've never heard of his channel. Thanks for the tips  i'm hoping I can do this fairly smoothly   I'm considering using my old gaming rig I have and upgrading the storage to a raid setup. Do you think a 3570k and 16 gigs of ram would be fast enough for this build?

 

That should be more that fine. Is this server doing anything more than being a domain controller? if not you really dont need the raid. just make sure you take regular backups and store then on a different machine.

 

Setting up active directory is not that difficult. if you want to test it out you can set up a virtual machine of windows 2012 (microsoft has some copies on their site that are free for 120 days) and mess around with setting it up before you try to do this for real.